American Life in Poetry: Column 496

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

One of Grant Wood’s earliest paintings is of a pair of old shoes, and it hangs in the art museum in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where Wood grew up. Here’s a different kind of still life, in words, from Jim Daniels, who lives in Pittsburgh. The shoes we put on our feet gradually become like the person wearing them.

Work Boots: Still Life

Next to the screen door work boots dry in the sun. Salt lines map the leather and laces drooplike the arms of a new-hire waiting to punch out. The shoe hangs open like the sigh of someone too tired to speak a mouth that can almost breathe. A tear in the leather reveals a shiny steel toe a glimpse of the promise of safety the promise of steel and the years to come.